Vernacular works fine for me. And yes, there can be no hard boundaries. Nearly all sub-genres of vernacular drinks seem to be riffs on classic drinks like the daisy and mojito.
Perhaps any classic drink can be rendered a vernacular drink in unpracticed hands? But that shouldn’t imply that all vernacular drinks are bad drinks, even if a great many are. The most successful ones, I suspect, are simple and economical to compound, and anodyne in effect. For example, they work well out of a pitcher at a party. (I do tend to get a bit grumpy, however, at $15 a pop.)
Are there enough tenets of classical mixology to clearly differentiate it?
For me, the term “Food Magazine Drinks” refers not only to the type of drinks that food magazines favor (culinary, vernacular, etc.) but also the standards for the drinks that food magazines tend to publish (poorly researched and pushed along by the wrong editorial priorities). “Culinary Drinks” strikes me as a category of cocktails. “Food Magazine Drinks” sounds like a category of published cocktail recipes. An editorial phenomenon as much as a culinary one. But perhaps I have misinterpreted what David meant in coining the term.
No, you’re not. Food Magazine Drinks are vernacular drinks when they’re bathed, shaved, put in a new suit and forced to assume various ridiculous poses for the photo session. Although FMD also encompasses some classics when they’re subjected to the same treatment.
For me, Vernacular drinks are drinks that have no conscious link to the traditions or history of the American bar. They’re not de facto bad, no more than drinks in the classic tradition are de facto good. But they do ignore traditional aesthetics and notions of balance, so they can be achingly sweet, paralyzingly strong (the Long Island Iced Tea), sour and salty (the Salty Dog), etc. They can also be very creative, although often that’s in a typing-monkey sort of way (see the history of the Shooter). They do, however, have their sophisticated wing, where I would put the Culinary cocktails.
Disco drinks are in their own unique category because they were part & parcel with specific social behaviors of that era. Mostly in the form of highballs or shooters, they were juice box drinks which were liqueur-heavy. Go to a disco, do some coke or poppers, dance until you were drenched, then grab a quick, fruity something to cool down with. Wash, rinse, repeat pretty much till dawn. Nobody knew what the fuck they were drinking. But I can distinctly remember that those drinks had a very fast-pace to them, and were meant to be snapped back quickly. I remember going to 2001 Odyssey in Bklyn (while Son of Sam was still on the loose) and having my first Alabama Slammer there. I’ll never forget its cheap, neon shade of devil red, and just how much it resembled Robitussin.
Sex in the City drinks, or whatever we eventually decide to categorize them as, represented a different time and mood altogether…the segue into the age of the modern, pre-craft lounge. They were served mostly up in V-shaped martini glasses, emitted a slower, more seductive vibe, and meant to be much more of a time-consuming sip while the sounds of Hotel Costes or some form of house entranced the room.